Blending
by KkPixie
Summary: What if Julian were reborn?


Julian had been reborn - and this time he remembered to ask.  
  
Jenny was still the same sweet, beautiful goddess he remembered her as.  
  
They went out a few times, and eventually fell into bed together. A perfect blending of light and dark, and for one short night he found heaven.  
  
They tried to build a relationship, but their first encounter always loomed between them, and she soon stopped sleeping with him.  
  
Then she began to grow distance from him, to reject him; with not just her body, but with her mind and thoughts. The more tightly he held on to her, the more she slipped right through his fingers. He seduced her into bed one last time, but it became a mockery of the perfection of the first time, and the Shadow Man, for the first time in millennia, admitted defeat...  
  
* * *  
  
"Hey lovely, you're looking kind of down, aren't ya?" A red-head saddled up to Julian as he sat at a bar, trying to get drunk enough to forget, just for one more night.  
  
He spared a glance at her before looking back at his drink and slumping his shoulders again.  
  
"What's wrong?" At his baleful glare, she frowned. "Come on, you can talk to me. I'm some random women who thinks you look like a god and you'll most likely, if you're lucky, which it looks like you're not, you'll never run into me again. At least, I hope you're not lucky"  
  
Her small smile faded as he continued to stare mutinously at her. A few drinks later he realized, when his tongue had loosened enough to bitch, the woman had wandered off. Muttering, he began to pull out his wallet and bumped his elbow into a squishy body that was behind him and he hadn't noticed.  
  
"Sorry." His voice was raspy from veritable days of total silence.  
  
"Oh, no, I should be the one saying sorry, sweetcakes. I was the one hovering behind you."  
  
He started at the familiar voice of the red-haired woman, and almost began to cry in relief, although he'd die before admitting it.  
  
"Would you like to accompany me for a cup of coffee or two?" She asked him, and he looked down to a smile creeping at the edge of her mouth and green eyes twinkling into his. "I might even let you stay the night" And then she winked at him.  
  
He made a rude snort, then finished pulling out the money for his drinks.  
  
"Ok, ok, I'm sorry again. Obviously a guy doesn't drink himself into oblivion because he's looking for someone to spend the night with. Why don't you let me help you, and I can give some old-fashion comfort in a non- sexual way? If I can't have sex, the next best thing would be to mother someone. I haven't done that in a while, and it's plain to me that whatever drove you here had something to do with trouble of the female persuasion."  
  
She talked fast and he could hear her heartbeat picking up speed the longer he paid attention to her. He was making her nervous, even he while he attracted her. Not unusual; most every female on this world, and disturbingly also some males, were attracted to him even while he made them nervous. All of them except Jenny... Ah, Jenny...  
  
"Yes, that'll be fine." The musical tones of his voice that he once was once best known for disintegrated under stress, and depression from Jenny's rejection and a strange feeling that this small young female invoked that made his chest tighten in the most unusual fashion...  
  
* * *  
  
"So what's her name?" Was the first question out of the woman's - no, August's, he recalled her saying, mouth when she had pulled him into her small - minute was more like it - -apartment. They had caught a taxi and the ride to the building and up the elevator had been strained and silent. He hadn't known what to say, or even really wanted to say anything. She, on the other hand had a million questions, but she couldn't think of anything that wasn't very personal, and she didn't think that the way to her apartment was a good time or place for that kind of conversation.  
  
"What?" His voice was very quiet, and carried all the force of venom he could muster.  
  
She raised her eyebrows and fought a bizarre instinct to hide. "The one who broke your heart. I'm sorry, I guess I didn't think that it could've been a guy..." Her voice trailed off and she bit her lip, at first to keep from frowning, then from laughing as his eyes bugged out in reaction to her words.  
  
"I have no interest in people of my gender." He said it in such a stiff, restrained way that August couldn't help but smile, just a little bit.  
  
August motioned towards the couch that dominated her living room/kitchen area for him to sit. The two walls were covered ceiling to wall in bookcases, and the bookcases were full to overflowing with books, and her bedroom looked pretty much the same, except with a mattress on the floor. The kitchen was to the north and the huge windows took up most of the west wall. She got beautiful sunsets in here and her bedroom, next to the kitchen, which luckily was in the corner of the building, so she got an east view as well.  
  
Since the sun had set many hours ago and light pollution in Boston was terrible, all they could see out of her windows was a grey, unremarkable sky.  
  
They sat in companionable silence for a while, and after a sizable amount of time passed, August laid her head on Julian's shoulder and her eyes began to close. She awoke much later, when the sky was just beginning to lighten. They had slumped together, in a rather uncomfortable heap. She poked his side with her elbows, and made a soft snort at his grump of annoyance.  
  
"Come on," She whispered carefully as she stood up and put her hands under his armpits. "Let's curl up somewhere a touch more comfortable in maybe one less layer of clothing out of the three or four we're wearing."  
  
He followed her demurely into the next room, and helped a bit as she pulled off his shoes and jacket, then stood quietly while she pulled off her own. Then they both sprawled onto the bed and slipped into blissful sleep once more.  
  
* * * 


End file.
